Earlier this year, we announced to you that Bottpower was working on a café racer version of its XR1 street-tracker motorcycle. Using a Buell XB as a donor bike, the Bottpower XC1 Cafe Racer kit transforms the big-displacement American twin into something a little bit more hipster. Though we are not big on the café racer scene we have been enchanted with the work done by Bottpower on this project so far. We imagine the finished result will be coming forth shortly; until then though, we’ll just have to drool over these nearly finalized renders. And yes for Buell purists, the Bottpower kit has the option to allow you to use the Buell swingarm, belt-drive, wheels, and brakes — if you are into the whole perimeter brake kool-aid drinking thing.
Want to improve your riding skills from the comfort of your computer or tablet? The Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) has the digital solution for you. Releasing four courses onto the iTunes U store for free, the MSF has made available a wide variety of tips and strategies to help motorcyclists to sharpen and hone their two-wheeled craft. The four courses are “An Adventure in Motorcycle Physics,” “Dr. Ray’s Street Strategies,” “Dr. Ray’s Guide to Group Riding,” and “Dr. Ray’s Seasoned Rider,” with each class consisting of 20 or so chapters. The iTunes U courses are just one part of the MSF’s larger digital/online education strategy, with the venerable riding instruction group offering other apps and services for motorcyclists.
We were excited when it was announced that Horex, a revisited German brand, was getting a second chance at life…
The CRT-replacement Open class in MotoGP is causing an even bigger shake up of the class than was expected. The…
The Ducati 1199 Panigale is perhaps the pinnacle of technology for sport bikes from Bologna, Italy. With 195 horses of fury, and a positively anorexic dry weight of 367 lbs, the spec-sheet racing for the Panigale is intriguing, if getting around a race track the absolutely fastest way possible is your primary goal. But what if you enjoy the finer things in your Ducati life as well? In that case, the brains at Moto Puro might have just the thing for your Desmo addiction: the Ducati Elite II. To build the Elite II, the Dutch builders of Moto Puro took a Ducati 1199 Panigale S, and stripped the machine down to its Superquadro engine and electrical components. From there, those crazy Dutchmen built a café racer style motorcycle, complete with tubeless wire-laced wheels on single-sided swingarm.
We knew at some point that the eight-part “TT Legends” documentary would have to come to an end, and today is that…